a geologist bakes

November 15, 2016November 16, 2016

Tiramisu

I’ve created a monster. I’ve taught Da how to bake a few things. His signature bakes include; flapjacks, cherry loaf (I didn’t teach him that), shortbread and amaretti. That last one is the problem. He likes them. Lots. He was making batches of 40 every few days. This’d be lovely except for two things. Every batch is almost entirely different. It astounds me everytime how the same man, with the same recipe and the same ingredients can produce such variety but my days he does. The second hiccup is the vats of egg yolks he can amass in a week. Each batch of amaretti leaves 4 egg yolks. There is only so much creme patissiere anyone is arsed making.

So. I googled ‘ways to use up leftover egg yolks’. Ingenious, I know. In any case I came across this website. It’s brilliant. I like the systematic approach to recipes grouped by number of egg yolks needed. The world needs more order like that.

So, I didn’t manage to get past 3 egg yolks. I found tiramisu. Something I eat almost every Saturday, after my prosciutto panino, after I go for a swim with my two (deadly) boys and wonderful husband. I’ve been asked if it’s easy to make by a few people over the last few weeks too. Weird. I thought I’d give it a whirl.

Now, unfortunately I didn’t have enough cream so I used creme fraiche instead. It worked well, added a nice sour note.

Egg yolks 3

Caster sugar 180g

Mascarpone 200g

Creme fraiche 100ml

Cream 200ml

Strong coffee not sure, I used about a cup

Ladyfinger biscuits 24 or so

Cocoa powder lots?

There is a bit of messing involved with this recipe so turn on some calming music and tell all annoying people to disappear.

Put the egg yolks and sugar in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water and, using an electric beaters, whisk for about 10mins till everything goes lovely and pale and good and fluffy.

Whip in the mascarpone and creme fraiche.

In a separate bowl whip up the cream.

Fold a third of the cream into the eggy mix. Then pour in the rest of the cream and fold to combine everything beautifully.

This will look unnervingly liquidy but stay strong and put the mix in the fridge while you go make a coffee.

Find a nice big serving dish.

Generously dunk your biscuits in the coffee and lay them out, covering the entire base of your dish.

Go get your egg mix and pour half over the biscuits.

Dunk some more biscuits and lay them carefully over the mix.

Pour on the rest of the egg mix and firmly tap the dish on the counter to level everything nicely.

Get a sieve and enough cocoa to blanket the whole lot. Then put it in the fridge for a good two hours to firm up.